Bah, humbug.
A little earlier I nonchalantly and lazily microblogged using the oh-so-professional channel of my Facebook status about something that slightly irritated me whilst watching the news. Here was what I wrote:
One attempted act of terrorism: Almost 24/7 news coverage. Thousands of scientific breakthroughs every day: Not even a few minutes of airtime. No [...]
Archive for the ‘cool physics’ Category
Media coverage, skew, and general not-in-the-Christmas-spirit ranting
Posted in controversial..., cool physics, film / tv / music, outreach, psychological ponderings, shameless self-promotion on December 27, 2009 | 10 Comments »
A flurry of interesting preprints…
Posted in cool physics, expt vs theory showdown, learnin' stuff, links, quantum computing, web on December 1, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
My pick of interesting recent ArXiv papers…
So much to read, so little time!
Robust Entanglement in Anti-ferromagnetic Heisenberg Chains by Single-spin Optimal Control
Quantum System Identification: Hamiltonian Estimation using Spectral and Bayesian Analysis
Hierarchical Genetic Algorithm Approach to Determine Pulse Sequences in NMR
Efficient creation of multipartite entanglement in flux qubits
Spin Systems and Computational Complexity
Algorithmic Technique for Decomposing Unitary [...]
Carl Sagan – ‘A Glorious Dawn’ ft Stephen Hawking (Cosmos Remixed)
Posted in artsey, cool physics, film / tv / music, web on September 25, 2009 | 4 Comments »
OK, this may be even cooler than the violation of Bell’s inequalities in Phase qubits.
(Via Bad Astronomy)
“The sky calls to us
If we do not destroy ourselves
We will one day venture to the stars”
Almost makes me cry… Here’s to the amazing Carl Sagan.
General Fusion Video
Posted in cool physics on September 15, 2009 | 4 Comments »
Via Next Big Future: A great video about the progress being made by General Fusion on their hydraulic-based fusion reactor.
Qudos on the Qudits!
Posted in cool physics, expt vs theory showdown, quantum computing, superconductors on August 12, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Martinis group at UCSB have demonstrated operations on a quantum bit with 5 levels (qudit with d=5) instead of the usual 2 (qubit):
“Emulation of a Quantum Spin with a Superconducting Phase Qudit”
Matthew Neeley,1 Markus Ansmann,1 Radoslaw C. Bialczak,1 Max Hofheinz,1 Erik Lucero,1 Aaron D. O’Connell,1 Daniel Sank,1 Haohua Wang,1 James Wenner,1 Andrew N. Cleland,1 Michael [...]
It’s not cake but it’s close!
Posted in cake, cool physics, humour on July 16, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Here are some pictures of our Liquid Nitrogen Ice cream endeavours… mmm. Disclaimer: Don’t try this at home unless you have had training in handling cryogenic liquids
Ingredients: Cream, milk or that strange stuff we don’t have over here, sugar, crushed fruit, and liquid nitrogen. Recipe: Stir the sugar into the cream until it [...]
Supercool talks
Posted in cool physics, fun and games, outreach, shameless self-promotion, superconductors on June 26, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
So we’ve had a week of University Admissions open days and activities days here in Physics land. Here are a couple of pictures where I’m giving a talk entitled ‘Supercool Computers’ to AS level students (16-18).
We typically show some demonstrations with Liquid Nitrogen, verify that gases do not follow the ideal gas law using [...]
Circuit diagrams of real neural systems
Posted in BCI, cool physics, learnin' stuff, psychological ponderings, sci-fi, transhumanism on April 16, 2009 | 4 Comments »
Via WIRED
How to Map Neural Circuits With an Electron Microscope
“This giant, and potentially revolutionary, task requires custom software, electron microscopes and an incredibly sharp knife. If everything goes right, the team may be the first to create a circuit diagram that explains how mammals see.”
Photo Credit: Marc Lab / Moran Eye Institute
This is just too [...]
Reconfigurable spacecraft parts from superconductors
Posted in cool physics, superconductors on April 10, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Via Next Big Future
This is a really cool and novel use of superconductors:
Reconfigurable Spacecraft as Kinematic Mechanisms Based on Flux-Pinning Interactions
LHC virtual tour
Posted in cool physics, links on March 16, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Via The Observer Effect
This is amazing: A 3D virtual tour of the LHC. Complete with soundtrack of people making busy working noises
